NEW YORK -- The Yankees are on a modest two-game winning streak. The vaunted back end of their bullpen, particularly Dellin Betances, is no doubt making opposing hitters consider opting out of their at-bats. The lineup still isn't hitting much, but it is making the most of the hits it does manage to get. And Masahiro Tanaka, their nominal No. 1 starter, is pitching like an ace again.

But there is an elephant in the room, or more accurately, an anchor in the middle of the Yankees' batting order, and it threatens to drag the ship down with it.

That anchor is Alex Rodriguez.

A-Rod took another 0-for-4 in Saturday's 3-2 victory over the Tampa Bay Rays at Yankee Stadium, a game won in dramatic fashion on Brett Gardner's walk-off home run with two out in the ninth inning. To be fair, Rodriguez hit the ball hard his first time up, barely missing a home run when Desmond Jennings made a leaping catch at the left-field wall. And he went down looking at a borderline strike in the fourth.

But he looked pathetic striking out in the sixth, and not much better flying out to shallow right in the eighth. Since hitting a home run off Mike Pelfrey in his first at-bat on April 9, A-Rod has four hits in 42 at-bats. His batting average is down to .132, his slugging percentage .245, his OBP .233, his OPS .478. He has walked just six times this season and struck out 18 times.

To say he is having a slow start is an insult to slow starts. In fact, he is having by far the worst start of his career, and I truly did not realize how bad until I went back through all of his 22 big league seasons. His previous low average after the first 15 games of a season was .204 in May 2009, when he was recovering from his first hip surgery. But even that year he had hit seven home runs, including one in his first at-bat.

What makes this start even more alarming is that, traditionally, Alex Rodriguez has always gotten out of the gate quickly. In 19 previous Aprils -- remember, he began one season in May and another in August -- his career average is .294., his OPS .955.

And while Yankees manager Joe Girardi might cling to the belief that this is just what it appears to be -- an unusually slow start -- that belief has to be mitigated by several factors: No. 1, A-Rod will turn 41 in July. No. 2, he also had a horrible spring training. And No. 3, he had an equally horrific end to his otherwise excellent 2015 season. Over the last two months of last season, A-Rod hit .191. Add in his numbers for the first 15 games of this season, and the number drops to .178.

At what point does a slow start become an irreversible decline?

That is something that will take a bit longer to determine, because, as we know, players can get hot and reverse poor early-season numbers in a hurry. It remains to be seen, of course, if Rodriguez is still a player capable of that kind of a reversal.

But what we can see now is this: Having Rodriguez in the middle of an already-weak lineup more often than not brings the Yankees' offense to a grinding halt. It's not helping Mark Teixeira, batting in front of him, because there's no reason for any opposing pitcher to give him anything meaty to hit, hence Teixeira's team-leading 13 walks. And it's not helping Brian McCann, who often hits behind him, because he's often left to lead off an inning after A-Rod has made the final out.

Face it: It's not helping anyone at this point. And it's not helping A-Rod, who despite his outward confidence has got to be feeling the pressure to perform at least partially to the standard he established last year, when he hit 33 home runs and batted .250 despite missing the entire 2014 seasons on suspension.

A-Rod has been conspicuously absent from the postgame clubhouse the past couple of days, and who can blame him? It's hard to answer questions that you don't know the answer to yourself. Girardi has fallen into responding to Rodriguez questions with a stock reply: "I don’t think you abandon plans just because of 20 at-bats, 30 at-bats, 40 at-bats. Right now, we have a lot of guys that are struggling. So, I believe they’re going to come out of it."

And some Yankees have shown signs of coming around. Teixeira had three hits on Friday and a single and a hard lineout on Saturday. Carlos Beltran started well and leads the team with four home runs. Even Chase Headley, hovering just above A-Rod at .159, hit some rockets on Friday night.

But A-Rod can't seem to get going, and the Yankees' options with him are severely limited. Releasing him is out of the question; he is owed $42 million for this year and next year, and like most owners, Hal Steinbrenner hates the taste of his own money. You could bench him, but with the injury to Aaron Hicks, the Yankees are short an outfielder and would be forced to use Dustin Ackley in right field while sliding Beltran into the DH spot. It is possible that some help will arrive over the next few days; Nick Swisher is hitting the cover off the ball in Triple-A but has hit just .234 in the majors since leaving the Yankees in 2012. And his gimpy knees probably make it impossible for him to play the outfield anymore.

So what are the Yankees to do about this $275 million elephant in the room named Alex Rodriguez? Honestly, there's not really much they can do other than take Girardi's optimistic approach.

"Sometimes it’s timing, sometimes it’s just bad luck," the manager said about A-Rod's early-season struggles. "And you just gotta fight through it."

That might be the only alternative, even if it is ultimately a losing battle.